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Have you checked your CO detectors lately???

ICEBALL585

ICEBALL585

Bacontard
Sep 8, 2009
6,817
2,078
.:585:.
(A few of you have me as friends on FB so you've already read about my crazy weekend)


So my family had a very interesting New Years weekend. My wife called me at work Friday morning stating that the CO detector was going off. I had my wife call the Fire Dept just to make sure nothing was wrong. Fire Dept shows up and finds that there is definitely CO in our house. Our first and second floors had detectable CO levels but was still semi-safe. However our basement was reading extremely toxic levels which would have seeped into the rest of the house given enough time. The level of CO that starts affecting humans is 70ppm and the levels in our basement were over 3000ppm. The gas company came and shut down our boiler and they figured it was just blocked which caused the CO buildup in our basement. We were lucky enough to find a heating company to come out that night who determined that our boiler and venting was completely rusted out (there were actual little pin holes in several places in our venting). They said it's probably been a problem for sometime now but it somehow hadn't affected us yet. We spend the night out at my dad's because our house had no heat. The heating company came back on Saturday morning and spent 7 hours installing a brand new boiler and venting so that we had heat again by Saturday night.

Another crazy part of the story is that the night before all this happened I was down in our basement messing with our clothes dryer that wasn't working correctly. While I was messing with our dryer my nose started bleeding a lot which is very odd for me. We realize looking back that I was probably starting to feel the effects of CO poisoning but didn't realize it.

In the end our family is all safe and warm but wow what a crazy way to end our 2017.
 
Adventurous

Adventurous

Starshine Bro
Mar 19, 2014
10,782
9,775
Crawlorado
Damn dude, glad to hear!

We only had the CO detector go off once, and it was because I prematurely shut the flue after the fire in our wood burning fireplace died. Good thing the fire was the only thing that died that night.
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
55,832
21,847
Sleazattle
My house came with one. but the only thing I own that burns oxygen is my bong and I meticulously maintain it.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,478
8,555
How does one go about checking their CO detectors?
 
StiHacka

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,508
In hell. Welcome!
ICEBALL585 said:
(A few of you have me as friends on FB so you've already read about my crazy weekend)


So my family had a very interesting New Years weekend. My wife called me at work Friday morning stating that the CO detector was going off. I had my wife call the Fire Dept just to make sure nothing was wrong. Fire Dept shows up and finds that there is definitely CO in our house. Our first and second floors had detectable CO levels but was still semi-safe. However our basement was reading extremely toxic levels which would have seeped into the rest of the house given enough time. The level of CO that starts affecting humans is 70ppm and the levels in our basement were over 3000ppm. The gas company came and shut down our boiler and they figured it was just blocked which caused the CO buildup in our basement. We were lucky enough to find a heating company to come out that night who determined that our boiler and venting was completely rusted out (there were actual little pin holes in several places in our venting). They said it's probably been a problem for sometime now but it somehow hadn't affected us yet. We spend the night out at my dad's because our house had no heat. The heating company came back on Saturday morning and spent 7 hours installing a brand new boiler and venting so that we had heat again by Saturday night.

Another crazy part of the story is that the night before all this happened I was down in our basement messing with our clothes dryer that wasn't working correctly. While I was messing with our dryer my nose started bleeding a lot which is very odd for me. We realize looking back that I was probably starting to feel the effects of CO poisoning but didn't realize it.

In the end our family is all safe and warm but wow what a crazy way to end our 2017.
Click to expand...
My steam boiler mechanic discovered a pinhole in the crown sheet during the annual service, above the water line. It will have to be replaced sooner than later, hopefully when the winter is over. I am looking at $8-$10k bill - but I also want to change from oil to natural gas fired one so this is roughly aligned with my long term plans, just a little accelerated. :dead:

Speaking of crazy, the fresh NWS Boston's forecast is calling for 12-18" of heavy snow and 50MPH winds tomorrow. :help:
New generator is sitting in the basement, I cannot deal with a couple of -30F winchill nights/days without heat. :help::help:
 
johnbryanpeters

johnbryanpeters

Hero
Sep 27, 2001
36,693
18,072
Making moss sad in New Haven, Vermont
StiHacka said:
My steam boiler mechanic discovered a pinhole in the crown sheet during the annual service, above the water line. It will have to be replaced sooner than later, hopefully when the winter is over. I am looking at $8-$10k bill - but I also want to change from oil to natural gas fired one so this is roughly aligned with my long term plans, just a little accelerated. :dead:

Speaking of crazy, the fresh NWS Boston's forecast is calling for 12-18" of heavy snow and 50MPH winds tomorrow. :help:
New generator is sitting in the basement, I cannot deal with a couple of -30F winchill nights/days without heat. :help::help:
Click to expand...
What did you get for a generator?
 
StiHacka

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,508
In hell. Welcome!
johnbryanpeters

johnbryanpeters

Hero
Sep 27, 2001
36,693
18,072
Making moss sad in New Haven, Vermont
boogenman

boogenman

Turbo Monkey
Nov 3, 2004
4,367
1,041
BUFFALO
We just moved into a new(new for us, built in 1993) with a brand new furnace. We do have the original hot wanter tank which makes me nervous with CO at times. Also have a gas dryer in the basement. The bank requires CO detectors to close so hopefully we are good.

ICEBALL did you switch over to high efficiency? Is there such thing with a boiler?
 
ICEBALL585

ICEBALL585

Bacontard
Sep 8, 2009
6,817
2,078
.:585:.
boogenman said:
We just moved into a new(new for us, built in 1993) with a brand new furnace. We do have the original hot wanter tank which makes me nervous with CO at times. Also have a gas dryer in the basement. The bank requires CO detectors to close so hopefully we are good.

ICEBALL did you switch over to high efficiency? Is there such thing with a boiler?
Click to expand...
We got a brand new boiler for the reasonable price of $7000 which is good for a Lochinvar (from what I'm told). Not really sure if it's considered high efficiency but it definitely works way better than our old one. We also bought 2 new CO detectors so we put one upstairs to replace our old one and we put the other new one in the basement right next to the new boiler. After living through that situation I don't want to take any more chances like that again.
 
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